The end of comms planning as we know it

A few days ago, a colleague asked me if communiations planning as an agency capability still exists or the term is just outdated. After giving it some thought, I came to the conclusion that comms planning no longer exists in its pure form. The role of comms planning is becoming less about planning communication distribution, and more about planning experiences through content or services.

Comms planning and experience planning are two different animals. The first one is about planning where and how to distribute content (including advertising) to engage with the audience in the right place, at the right time, and with the right content. The second is about gathering insights to define and create the right content or services.

Two factors are driving this shift: The convergence of media and automation. While today we have more choices than ever in terms of digital channels, people still only have 24 hours in a day. Therefore, people are getting their content through a few social outlets (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook) to simplify their existence. These outlets function as gatekeepers of people's relationships with the world. Nearly half of American Internet users are already getting their news about politics and government on Facebook, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted last year. No wonder the New York Times and five major publications signed a deal with Facebook to distribute instant articles through Facebook’s news feed.

The other is automation. Today, everyone is a publisher with access to at least five platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram) at her fingertips. Therefore, managing one's own social media presence can be a full-time job. We, however, can easily automate our social media presence through services like Buffer, Sprout Social and Everypost. These tools help post content at the right time to multiple networks at once, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Dropbox.

In summary, in today’s digital and connected economy, creating value is more important than distributing the value. The role of a planner needs to evolve by focusing on the part that is harder to automate, which is creating services and content that matter.

Comments

Adidas kills TV. Now, let’s debate

The News: Adidas is ditching TV for digital. The company is looking to boost its e-commerce revenues from $1.06 billion in 2016 to $4.25 billion by 2020 — and Adidas wants to use digital channels to get there. The Rationale: Fish where the fish are. Younger consumers don't watch TV anymore. They spend most of their time on their mobile devices. The Controversy: Why do they want to ditch a medium that is allegedly more "critical" to the brand and that generates more sales than digital? Here we have the Debate between TV and digital: Media Consumption TV: People are watching TV now more than ever. Digital: People are consuming media more than ever, but mostly through digital devices. The Fact: In 2017, people are projected to spend 6 hours on digital – with the majority being mobile devices - while only spending 4 hours consuming television according to the eMarketer forecast. Younger viewers watch 2.5 times more internet video than TV. Consumers aged 13-24 watch 12.1 hours …

How Cool Brands Stay Hot: Aim for Love, Not Likes

Love is an unconditional emotion while like is a more watered-down version of love. Loving someone means that he or she means everything to you while liking someone implies that you are only happy being with that person. Love involves deeper, stronger emotions, while like is more of a tender feeling towards that special someone. In a world of infinite choices, love is everything. Like is a nice to have. Today, we live in a world of abundance, where people intent to create content surpass their time to consume it. Video content is much easier and cheaper to produce than at any other time in history. YouTube sees 400 hours of video uploaded every minute. Facebook has more than 250,000 status updates in the same span. We could never read and see everything online. With unlimited possibilities and limited time, we pay sustainable attention to what we love and divided attention to what we like. We spend hours watching Homeland and give our divided attention to our news feed on Facebook. …

Winter and Summer in Adland

It is winter in Adland. We have moved from a world of scarcity to a world of abundance and algorithms. We have lost the power of influence. Trust has been severely damaged. Consumer attention is the new bottleneck. We no longer decide who sees us. Instead, we get picked. 30 second is not enough anymore. We need to take consumers through a scenic journey to create a long lasting relationship. Everyone is a publisher. It is easier than ever to create, but harder than ever to make a hit. The impulse to make has far outrun the desire to consume. New forces have emerged in the form of sophisticated algorithms. A new model has surfaced called "pay per play,” which scored everything we do on relevance to feeding the machine. It decides what gets picked, when, and where, based on extreme relevancy. Mass media has vanished. Precision and personalization have emerged. It is winter in Adland. The good days are all long gone. It is Summer in Adland We now have the power to make bra…

digital is human

Search This Blog